CROSS RIVER GORILLA

The Cross River Gorilla

Fewer than 300. That's how many Cross River gorillas remain on Earth — scattered across the rugged, forested hills along the Nigeria-Cameroon border. These are the rarest of all gorilla subspecies, and perhaps the rarest apes on the planet. They live in 11 fragmented groups, each cut off from the others by farmland, villages, and roads.

The Cross River gorilla was only identified as distinct from western lowland gorillas in 2000, though local communities had long known the difference. These gorillas are more lightly built than their lowland cousins, with smaller teeth and a distinct skull shape — the product of generations of isolation in the highland forests.

What's saving them isn't a multi-million dollar conservation program. It's stubborn local communities who have lived alongside these gorillas for centuries and decided they shouldn't disappear. Combined with the efforts of a handful of NGOs, Cameroon and Nigerian wildlife authorities are working to connect the isolated forest patches these gorillas call home.